Fed up with the hyperbole of the referendum?

[Phil Pascoe]

Idealogical it might be, but the remain camp is looking to the future? :lol: Best joke of the day so far. The future sure as hell isn't the EU.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

" The only real prob with free speech is the domination of the media by the right ..."
No one forces anyone to buy a right wing newspaper - they sell because people wish to read them. I am forced to buy a Guardian ... because the BBC is the biggest single consumer of Guardians and I am forced to pay the BBC (as I wish to watch freeview channels). That's domination.

 

[Fitzroy]

I feel it is about time someone mentions Hitler and invokes Godwin's Law bringing this 'discussion' to an end.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

June 24th

 

[Jacob]

Idealogical it might be, but the remain camp is looking to the future? :lol: Best joke of the day so far. The future sure as hell isn't the EU.

I meant "idealistic" not ideological. Slight difference!
In spite of the massed facts and rumours going around I think few on either side have the resources to base a decision on them alone, and we are all going by gut feeling.

 

[Jacob]

I feel it is about time someone mentions Hitler and invokes Godwin's Law bringing this 'discussion' to an end.

We've had Hitler all ready. Been and gone, you must have missed him! :lol:

post1058840.html?hilit=hitler#p1058840

 

[Eric The Viking]

Jacob, I assume you already know that the European Coal and Steel Community, now absorbed into the greater EU, was lifted in large part by Schuman in 1946-7 from Funk's 1942 "Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft", published when he was head of the Reichsbank. The foreword was by Hunke, of the Nazi propaganda ministry.

The document was in essence the master plan for the post-war reconstruction of Europe (but the Nazi one).

Years ago, at an antiquarian book dealer I saw what I believe to be a genuine, original copy of the bound minutes of the conference (several volumes), which led to the published document (there are probably more copies of the First Folio in existence!).

My technical German is terrible however, and I can't vouch for this translation (and it looks to be significantly truncated):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lee.riley/Notices/EWG.pdf

[edit]
See also: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Hunke#Die_europ.C3.A4ische_Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft0
(auf Deutsch), but it's about the political philosophy Hunke brought to the table, not the proposal itself.
[/edit]


The ECSC, incidentally, is one reason why we have lost our mines and blast furnaces. Under the EEC command economy (see Schuman), other countries were designated coal and steel production areas (France was agriculture). Its structures were absorbed into the EU several treaties ago. We are not a designated country for coal and steel production.

 

[Jacob]

.....
The ECSC, incidentally, is one reason why we have lost our mines and blast furnaces. .....

Not so. The mines were closed by Thatcher.
They are entertaining all these plots and sub plots - a bit like a James Bond movie with all the strings being pulled by evil maniacs (the last of the Nazis :shock: :shock: ) from a subterranean control centre somewhere in Europe.
The more I hear them the less I believe them!

"Years ago, at an antiquarian book dealer I saw what I believe to be a genuine, original copy......." good start to a historical/spy novel!!

 

[Eric The Viking]

Feel free not to check my references (again), but please stop suggesting all this is fantasy.

Which one of us is afraid of confronting facts?

 

[Jacob]

Feel free not to check my references (again), but please stop suggesting all this is fantasy.

Which one of us is afraid of confronting facts?

No fear - it's not "the facts" but your picturesque and imaginative interpretation of the facts which I think is open to question!

I must put Funk's 1942 "Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft" on my reading list!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Not so. The mines were closed by Thatcher? More were closed by Wilson.

 

[Jacob]

Not so. The mines were closed by Thatcher? More were closed by Wilson.

http://leftfootforward.org/2013/04/tory ... -thatcher/

Basically to destroy union power, in her own words: "so we could tame the militants"

 

[Eric The Viking]

You do read a lot into stuff, Jacob.

Of course the Ridley plan existed; of course the Tories wanted revenge for Heath (some of us just wanted revenge aimed at Heath, but that's another story); of course Scargill and Thatcher did more damage than anyone else, but the fact remains the European plan called for coal production in Germany and Belgium, not the UK.

Schuman envisioned a command economy for the whole of Europe, as did Funk et al before him. The Nazis didn't have 'Socialist" in the title for nothing. They hated the communist Russians for racist reasons, but ideologically had a great deal in common, love of command economies being but one aspect.

The Euratom treaty, incidentally, still today has a separate legal validity nominally independent of the EU (it was the third original pillar, along the ECSC and the Common Market).

I haven't done enough research on it, but (and this is speculation) i'd make an educated guess that it has something to do with us apparently being unable to build Hinkley "C" ourselves, instead being beholden to a French-government-owned company.

The fact remains that we passed competency for governing strategic civilian nuclear activities from Westminster to Brussels, at Maastricht. The revised Euratom treaty is listed/cited as an appendix to Maastricht, although not merged into the main treaty (I have a copy), although I think we probably effectively signed up in 1972, at the outset of our EU adventure.

It's the Acquis communautaire in action.

E.

But as you say, I'm just a wild conspiracy theorist.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Not so. The mines were closed by Thatcher? More were closed by Wilson.

http://leftfootforward.org/2013/04/tory ... -thatcher/

Basically to destroy union power, in her own words: "so we could tame the militants"

The first response was interesting.

 

[Jacob]

......i'd make an educated guess that it has something to do with us apparently being unable to build Hinkley "C" ourselves, instead being beholden to a French-government-owned company. ......

The plot thickens!
Jolly cunning these johnny foreigner! (Or Fritzs :lol: ).
Simpler explanation is the tory policy to outsource everything because of the theory that private businesses are more efficient than state. Luckily we have an efficient state enterprise (albeit French) to step in where we have failed, helped by a communist dictatorship - probably involving deep plotting by Fu Manchu and Dr (Professor) Moriarty.

Little do they know - we have in place our secret agent 008* (just when you thought it was safe to come out of the gents :shock: )

*Licensed to kill a swift half every now and then.

 

[mind_the_goat]

. We are not a designated country for coal and steel production.

We were not part of the treaty so had full control of our own industries.

 

[devonwoody]

Here is a new track to follow. Conspiracy idea.

http://www.tradersadvocate.com/pages/or ... 0k9z3nSk9i

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Interesting, DW. The polls tend to say that our young people will keep us in, but my friend is a GP who deals with hundreds of them told me the other day that the vast majority of the young people he'd chatted to about it were definitely for out. My wife is undecided and my uncle and my daughter (she still has the starry eyed optimism of youth) pro but I can't think of anyone else I know that wishes to remain.

 

[Eric The Viking]

. We are not a designated country for coal and steel production.

We were not part of the treaty so had full control of our own industries.

Not so. Google how we "donated" our fishing grounds, the most productive in Europe, to Spain and Portugal. Hint: it all happened <24 hours before we signed the treaty of Rome, and reduced our fishing industry to less than 1/10th of its former size. Because of quotas we also pretty much stopped exporting our own fish (most of the catch from our waters couldn't be landed here) and left it for others to take away. They are still our waters, by the way - the international law of the sea wasn't changed by Heath's treachery*.

Similarly the lunacy of milk quotas, protectionism for tiny French "farms." I know someone whose daughter used to drive a milk tanker cross-channel, importing milk to the UK, where we have the best stock and most productive dairy farms on the planet.

I say "Google" because certain participants on this thread think I'm just making stuff up.

Regarding the ECSC, I'd have to check, but even if we didn't accede to it in 1972 (1.1.73 to be pedantic), we did at Maastricht, as then the two entities, EC and ECSC, were merged.

As I said earlier, only Euratom still has independent legal identity, but that is nominal. For all practical purposes, it is also administered by the EU.

E.

*More Googling - find the text of Lord Kilmuir's legal advice to Heath, from 1961. IIRC, K. was a Law Lord at the time or a government law officer (can't remember what Heath was doing). EIther way, the advice had (has!) serious legal weight. It is proof Heath lied to the Commons (and the rest of the nation) by claiming at the time there was no loss of sovereignty - he was told unambiguously. Wilson did essentially the same thing (lied) in the run up to 1975, in the governmental referendum leaflet, although it was an even more boldfaced lie than now (Cameron's little booklet). There are other governmental papers of the time (released a decade or more ago under the 30-year rule), where exactly how to deceive the voters over the matter of sovereignty was discussed quite overtly. They were nothing if not hubristic.

[edit]
I should mention something else important, too: The treaties are actually a matter of last resort, and NOT the day-to-day "operating manual" for the EU. It goes like this:

1. An EU bureaucrat decides some government's behaviour (or expected behaviour) isn't in the EU's interests, so there is a phone call to that country's PM or equivalent, "suggesting" a change of tack would be appropriate, in the interests of the Community. "We wouldn't want to have recourse to the Treaties now, would we?"

So de facto control is exercised, without there being anything on paper. If that is ignored...

2. Letters are exchanged (I'd expect that would initially involve govt. law officers, as they would be called on to advise ministers, and reminding them of our treaty obligations first, informally, of course, would be sensible, but I'm speculating).

3. Last resort is a case at the European Court. That, is, by its own constitutional documents,** bound to find in favour of further European integration, so normally (and correctly by its terms of reference) it will find in favour of the Commission. The "judges" are political appointees, and in the past have been politico-bureaucrats, even with few legal qualifications. Anyway, no government wants to get to this stage and be humiliated by the EC (we are, occasionally, a noisy exception to this!), so they cave.

You can see all this with the fall-out from the banking crisis and Greek debt, etc. Maastricht and Nice (don't have copies of later treaties) both contain clear and specific processes for dealing with excessive sovereign(!) debt incurred by eurozone countries, with penalties including suspension from participation in EU institutions, should "reforms" not happen. There were strict rules about the limited nature of ECB intervention, written warnings (from the Commission to the naughty country), etc. These were all ignored during the euro crisis because of the political momentum to prevent the euro failing (it still will, in due course). They even managed to stiff Osborne (who is an *****, by the way), for a huge loan (which we borrowed to get ourselves, so we could then hand it to German banks to pay for Greek profligacy!).
[/edit]


**The apparatus for setting up the European Court is in the treaties (NOT the European Court of Human Rights - that belongs to an entirely different setup, nominally nothing to do with the EU at all).

 

[devonwoody]

Interesting, DW. The polls tend to say that our young people will keep us in, but my friend is a GP who deals with hundreds of them told me the other day that the vast majority of the young people he'd chatted to about it were definitely for out. My wife is undecided and my uncle and my daughter (she still has the starry eyed optimism of youth) pro but I can't think of anyone else I know that wishes to remain.

Depends I think where is surgery is located. :wink: